Wednesday, 26 August 2015

Get Me Free #42: YOUTH MAN - Pigs

Article by KevW

These are exciting times for Birmingham punks YOUTH MAN. This weekend they'll be making their first appearance at Reading and Leeds festivals, and will also be heading out on a European tour in the autumn, before returning to the UK for a series of dates supporting Tigerclub. Their debut appearance on The Sound Of Confusion will beat any of those, right? OK, maybe not. Still, this is our introduction to the trio, and it probably won't be the last time we feature them. Punk bands haven't been in short supply for around forty years now, and there are more now than ever. The trouble is, many of them sound a bit... fake.

Copying your favourites is a trick that many groups have done, some of them very well, but it's always nice when people tackle a genre with a genuine passion for what they're doing. YOUTH MAN are another punk band, and they're not wildly different from some others, but you know that they mean it. There's a lust and a hunger about raucous new track 'Pigs' that's so often missing, or perhaps just not caught properly in a studio environment. No such trouble here, 'Pigs' is a seething and intense hunk of noise from the off, with pummeling drums, sharp guitar and vocals by someone who's not afraid of ripping the living daylights out of their throat, all weighed down by a bassline that gives an added weighty magnitude. I bet this will make your ears bleed live.